If a current fundraising effort succeeds, the 805 freeway will get a set of new, city-official signs announcing the offramps to the Convoy Asian Cultural District. Highway signs may not sound like that big a …

You have to wake up pretty early in the morning to beat the lines at Hans & Harry’s Bakery. The Euro-style cake and pastry shop has been luring customers to a shopping center in the …

It had been a few years since I sought out a certain pad thai farmers market stand to receive a tasty lesson in Thai street food, and I felt overdue for a refresher course. However, …

A group of boats appear to be racing across the bay, their striped, colorful sails puffed out by steady winds and shining in the midday sun. From left to right behind them, a panorama of …

When I wrote about it in 2015, East Village bakery Brooklyn Bagel and Bialy was the closest our city came to having a legit New York bagel shop. Meaning I might have experienced lasting disappointment …

Because I first spotted it at a mall, I walked around for years assuming Hooleys Irish Pub & Grill was part of a national franchise; like it was the Irish answer to Chili’s or TGI …

It had been well over two years since I last plied my hunger at an offer of all-you-can-eat. Back in the 2010s, friends and I would saunter into a place determined to out-eat such offers. …

We’ve reached that time of year when folks head out to the easternmost reaches of San Diego County in search of desert wildflowers. Thanks to a drier than usual winter, this spring won’t be hyped …

For as long as I’ve known the Village of La Jolla, I’ve associated its Girard Avenue with exactly three types of businesses: high-end cosmetics, designer clothing, and Warwick’s bookstore. So it’s fair to say I …

We may live in uncertain times, but I’d still call it a fair assumption, in 2022, that any meal priced under ten dollars will either be served on a tortilla or bun. So how is …

It’s customary for a restaurant to ask a diner’s preference for certain things. How well done do you take your steak? Which toppings on your pizza? How spicy your chicken? It’s far less common for …

It’s a fish taco so long, it comes wrapped in two corn tortillas, laid end to end. So blackened by squid ink tempura, you might never guess that impeccably cooked white fish lies within. So …

As I drive along El Cajon Boulevard through North Park, a swirl of pink neon lets me know that it’s not just the same old deli making sandwiches within the ABC Market & Deli. Rather, …

It’s after 4pm, and I’m sitting in a booth at the Omelette Factory, the egg-centric breakfast restaurant that’s been operating in Santee for some 28 years. Of course, nobody’s eating omelets at 4pm, and no …

They say a lot of Americans took up baking, roughly two years ago this month. I’m not one of them, but during the pandemic I did start paying closer attention to the bakeries doing business …

The word sánguches will be new to most of us, but if you say the word quickly it’s not hard to tell what sánguches means to the people of Peru: sandwiches. Knowing this makes it …

Thank the kitchen god, our days of mediocre phở have come to an end. One year ago, my family moved from central San Diego to East County. Though we occasionally miss the walkability of our …

The last time I tried Burmese food, I had to drive hours to get it. But on this sunny afternoon, the car only has to make it as far as Rancho Bernardo. Still, I’m impatient …

In the parking lot, it takes me a moment to realize what’s missing. I’m standing beside the old power plant in Carlsbad, only I don’t recognize it at first, because the stack is gone. The …

Given the recent tourism features in several travel magazines and the Los Angeles Times, Oceanside looks on a mission to raise its profile with out of towners. However, the city’s local-oriented developments may be more …

Zad Mediterranean Cuisine sits several hundred feet down a peculiar, obsolete offshoot of Campo Road that dead ends beneath highway 94. Technically, Zad is visible from the eastbound lanes, but the storefront’s muted hues are …

It’s easy to imagine that some who drive the North Park section of Adams Avenue still think clothes are being washed in An’s Dry Cleaning. However, a legion of loyal fans know that, four years …

For those who haven’t yet found the time to check out the new-look Mingei International Museum, here’s a sure-fire way to make room in your busy schedule: by leveraging your appetite. Following a couple failed …

It was the heart-shaped pizza that brought me to Paradise Valley, a southeastern San Diego neighborhood roughly at the halfway point between National City and Spring Valley. Aside from single-family homes and apartment complexes, there …

For differing reasons, mussels and chicken wings were not what I imagined eating when I first heard about Golden Hill restaurant, Kingfisher. Granted, it has been nearly three years since word got around a modern …

Birria — a Mexican dish of shredded goat or beef, stewed in a broth warmed by chili peppers and adobo spices — has been around for hundreds of years. But only since the foodie internet …

Time was, you wouldn’t expect any remarkable effort from a kitchen trailer parked outside a brewery taproom. Particularly if its menu were limited to sliders and dirty fries. So, why have I driven to Bay …

“Chubby, round, and very pretty.” That’s how Google translates gordita redondita y bien bonita, the Spanish words written in pink neon on the wall of Barrio Donas. The shop’s name itself translates to “neighborhood donuts,” …

As of late January, work crews had finished installing the last leg of buffered bike lanes along 30th Street, in North Park. I noticed the new lanes, added just south of Adams Avenue, while slurping …

There were no other customers present when I walked into fast casual salad shop, Head Lettuce. But, make no mistake, the lunch rush was underway. The small eatery does business in University City, where it’s …

You can slap just about anything between two slices of bread and call it a sandwich, but that doesn’t mean all sandwich making arts are equal. I pointed the car south toward Chula Vista this …

Hailing from a cuisine characterized by the likes of schmaltz, schmears, corned beef, and brisket, the staples of a Jewish delicatessen would not appear to be likely candidates for veganization. Nevertheless, the newest addition to …

Wander the tightly packed, urban neighborhoods of Paris, and you may expect to find a boulangerie on nearly every city block. Drive the sprawling blocks of Scripps Ranch, on the other hand, and it’s a …

A certain fried poultry chain garnered buckets of free press last week for announcing it will be serving vegan chicken options at its restaurants. Really, KFC is just the latest fast-food brand to make hay …

It’s 2022, and we’re all more or less accustomed to ordering food from touchscreens. That could mean delivery order placed from our phones, fast food order made at digital kiosks, or — thank you, pandemic …

However much I might like a restaurant these days, it’s tough to achieve regular customer status with a food writing gig that always has me on the lookout for new and different. But when Underbelly …

Not that I need encouragement, but the late year rain and chill reminded me that New Year’s is the traditional time of year to feast on pozole. Which meant the thing to do was aim …

If there’s a fine line between tradition and cliché, no action straddles it better than ordering Chinese take-out on December 25th. Noodles, dumplings, mistletoe — all swirl together in whichever part of the brain nostalgia …

Hot chocolate and Oreo pancakes might not be what my wife had in mind when she sent me off with the children in search of breakfast. But it’s a chilly morning, and we’re dining outside, …

How much does Lemon Grove like Italian food? The answer may be forthcoming, as a new restaurant and market has set up shop in the neighborhood. Inpasta Artisan Pasta and Pizza opened this month a …

Having recently moved out of San Diego’s urban center, I’ve spent much of this year reconciling myself to the idea that, beyond the city proper, sometimes independent restaurateurs manage to outdo competition within suburban shopping …

It’s fair to assume that the Michelin Guide will never revisit San Ysidro. Nor that any restaurants in the small border district will again receive attention from magazines including Food & Wine, Fortune, or GQ. …

It probably says something about which stage of the fried chicken craze we’ve entered that I can squeeze in a couple of minutes of grocery shopping while waiting for my hot chicken sandwich to be …

People under a certain age might know them as Hungry Man dinners: frozen meals sold in partitioned, microwave-safe trays, in order to keep entrees and side dishes separate as they’re reheated. But, back in the …

I’d like to be disappointed, but my surroundings won’t allow it. There’s Mission Bay, spread out to the west, with the first shade of sunset color taking form overhead. I’m seated in a spacious patio, …

This wasn’t intended to be a story about a robot. When Tofu House opened a new location near SDSU this October, this Korean food fan was elated. Usually, I’m happy to leave college area restaurants …

If seems as though Perry’s Café has always been there, always easy to spot from the 5-North to 8-East freeway interchange. They say the family-owned breakfast diner has been in business over 35 years, and …

“We got a tiii-iip!” sings out the cashier, after the customer at the front of the line drops cash in the jar. “We got a tip!” sings back the makeshift kitchen crew, in unison and …

Earlier this year, I moved to a new neighborhood across town, and one by one I’ve been trying all the area taco shops. But I’m still trying to identify my new go-to. Everyone in San …

Most afternoons, I would be disappointed to make the trek into La Jolla only to find the peninsula sheathed in fog. But on this day, I would welcome the chill, because there’s a new tea …